"this" = the disruption of the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
Freed is quoted in "Why China could emerge a winner from Trump’s global energy shock/China’s evolution into an 'electrostate' may help insulate it from spiking oil prices" (WaPo)(gift link, so you can see the whole analysis).
The photo at the top of this article shows wind turbines in China, but China's plan has more to do with huge stockpiles of oil and the burning the abundant domestic coal.
Roughly one-third of China’s total energy consumption now comes from electricity, according to the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, 50 percent higher than the global average. More than a third of that electricity comes from solar, wind and hydropower....
So a third of a third of the energy — one ninth — comes from solar, wind and hydropower. I wonder how much comes from just solar and wind. Seems like hydropower is thrown in for more obfuscation. You can do your own research, but I think if you work it out you'll find that solar and wind amount to something like 7% of China's energy consumption. That's not much! They've been trying very hard for a long time and have a powerful incentive.
Posts
90 comments:
They've been trying very hard for a long time and have a powerful incentive.
…is the ‘they’ in this sentence China that’s trying hard to grow wind and solar or ‘center-left’ think tanks trying hard to convince rightly skeptical voters to swallow green new deal scams?
If you reflect for a moment on this logic, it is confirmed by the West's experience. Wind and solar are for situations where oil and gas are not easily supplied, whether it's policy-driven shortages or logistical supply-side practicality. Maybe it makes sense for China. And maybe it's a good thing that they're taking this route, choosing a less reliable and less portable means of generating electricity. Good for us, that is.
Funny how oil and gas still is the driver for most of the world's geopolitical heavy lifting.
…it is kind if fun for me to watch the devil quote scripture, here being leftie propagandists wrestling with Ec10 ideas about what happens in price spikes- searching for sources of new supply, substitution effect, conservation, all as if they’re novel ideas they thought up this morning. Yah they cherry pick ideas to win the political fight of the day but no matter…
They also certainly admire but are quite jealous of China’s oppressive central planning too…
I so hate the liberals. China is less reliant on oil and natural gas because most of its energy supply still comes from coal! How is this a good thing?
I'm sure Third Way climate and energy is very subsidized by China.
Funny how oil and gas still is the driver for most of the world's geopolitical heavy lifting.
In China's case, it will likely be to burn more coal. China is already the world's biggest coal burner, and this will simply push them further.
No one I know of has the expertise to know the answers to this kind of question. But just as liberals who believed the USSR would indeed bury us -- many hoping they would -- kept attributing amazing powers to the communist state until the day it disintegrated; so liberals today will tend to make Red China a far more formidable power than it really is. Nonetheless, where that "really is" proves out is still a known unknown. Just probably less potent than the libs who hate American strength and fortitude would like to imagine.
Is this the same Washington Post earliar this weeke that lied about seeking comment about Hegseth supporting our troops...?
"Center left" Josh Fried in WaPo = Wishful thinking and hopes of Trump failing. In conjunction with Trump's efforts to eject China from Panama and improve control over South American (governments) oil, this hurts China a bit. But, it doesn't hurt anyone other than the widely hated Iran very much.
It's not 1973. Oil is produced all around the world, and it remains relatively cheap. This helps Venezuela and Russia and pushes the Ukraine war further onto the back burner.
Renewables MAY form the backbone of energy supplies in 50 years. Maybe, but it'll probably still be nuclear and gas/oil/coal.
What terrible luck that, with that large geographic footprint, China doesn't have much in the way of hydrocarbon natural resources. i feel really bad for them.
Libs: Whatever the Orange Man is doing, there aren't as many positive things coming from it as you might think.
As a SWAG, 7% of supply coming from unpredictable, uncontrollable sources is probably all a grid can absorb without too much in the way of destabilizing effects.
One would think China would turn harder to nukes rather than cosplaying with reneverables.
A buddy of mine describes electric cars as "coal-powered vehicles."
The idea that "electricity" is somehow magically and cleanly conjured out of...something...is widespread and pernicious.
Hydropower is relatively "clean"--but dams are evil. And solar is the solution--but those massive solar arrays covering acres and acres of "America's dwindling farmland" are just fine.
If this goofy little war over fossilized tree blood doesn't convince people to go full-bore and double down on solving the fusion problem I don't know what to do for them. Cut the sand lands out altogether. They can go back to being sheep-stealing bedouins and we can go back to ignoring them. Unreal.
Musk often posting on x that China is way ahead of the US on Solar.
Trump is not an Orange man. The O-word is a pejorative label akin to the N-word. No, not nerd. Umder Diversity bloc classification, Trump is a Person of Orange or PoO.
The left's desperation to pretend "renewable" "green" energy is a near-term solution and that oil is on its way out used to be laughable, then it became tiresome, now it's becoming treasonous.
The Green blight is probably used to supply marginal electricity to Chinese deplorables and call it sustainable. Their left of center government responded with the same motive in planned parenthood to cull their Diverse "burdens" of State.
Gemini: Elon Musk has frequently stated that a solar array of approximately 100 miles by 100 miles (10,000 square miles), placed in a sunny location like Nevada, Texas, or Utah, could supply 100% of the United States' energy needs. This area, roughly equivalent to the size of Lake Erie, would be paired with a much smaller, roughly 1-mile-square battery storage facility to provide 24/7 power.
China has 100 days of Oil in their stockpile. Thats assuming all imports are cut off. But they get a lot of oil from Russia and the western hemisphere. Basically, they can ride out a Persian Gulf shut down for 6 months or more. That's assuming no rationing.
The USA has become a rogue state. And is trying to use oil and proxies to destroy Russia and China. Don't be surprised if they push back by giving Iran missiles and a nuke or two.
Yes, we could go almost 100 percent solar, the problem is cost. And reliability. And the enviromental impact of covering 10000 miles of land with solar panels. Probably make more sense just to cut down on AI - which consuming large of amounts of electricity for nothing.
Hate to break it to you, RSM. The Arabian sand tics have too big to fail global investment and ownership in companies, developments, countries and their politicians. They're never gonna go back to the days of Auda Abu Tayi
As point of comparison, Texas generates over 1/3rd of its electricity from wind and solar. Wind alone is nearly 25% of all Texas electrical generation. Texas has its own grid and produces twice as much electricity as any other state.
Texas electrical production is about 5% of China's.
Sure Howard. I'm sure their other chief exports - like wahabism - will make up any shortfall. I feel so culturally enriched already I just don't know what I'd do without it.
The primary Arabian export besides oil is Cash
China actually produces (that is- strips from the ground) a large amount of oil and natural gas. There are likely vast yet unknown deposits within the country. State run industries, like all others. They can drill where they're told to.
They use far more then they produce.
Worldwide there are vast amounts of untapped liquid and and gaseous hydrocarbons. I have read there are gas and oil fields under London. Which cannot be tapped by anyone. No one actually knows who has legal rights to profit from them- no one knows who actually owns the rights to them- and without profit, companies don't drill.
With the exploding popularity of Japanese Sushi among millennials and GenZers, the West can't get enough of the spicy Saudi wahabi paste
Prediction: the wind energy / giant wind turbines… will fail in most places , long term.
Bookmark this post.
Many wind turbines are not hooked up to any power grid. You are looking at a mass scale tax payer funded scam.
Althouse said...
You can do your own research, but I think if you work it out you'll find that solar and wind amount to something like 7% of China's energy consumption. That's not much! They've been trying very hard for a long time and have a powerful incentive.
Notice, the WaPo headline says "why" rather than "how" in headline about a "winner" emerging.
WaPo Headline: Why China could emerge a winner from Trump’s global energy shock
Per Althouse, the intent of the article is less concerned with demonstrating "how" China could emerge a "winner" with 7% renewables, but for the time being ascribing a "why" in the mind of the reader:
No country is going unscathed in the energy crisis triggered by the U.S. and Israeli assault on Iran, and China is no exception.
In the most corrupt state in the union … the wind turbines do not work. They are still as a coffin as the wind blows by.
Boatbuolder
It is not acres and acres. 1mw of solar capacity (capacity, not nominal) takes @25 acres of land.
1gw,equal to one nuke or coal plant, takes 25,000 acres or 39 square miles.
The coal/nuke plant with all supporting facility might take 10p acres, probably less.
John Henry
An interesting aspect of the possible China war is their parallel to the situation the Japanese were in during World War Two. During WW2, the Japanese were in desperate need of the oil from Indonesia. During the current Iran action, we have learned that the Chinese are in desperate need of the oil from the middle east. Supposedly they only have a 100 day supply of oil. In WW2, our subs cut off much of the Japanese supply by attacking sea lanes inside of the Japanese perimeter. If China were to go to war with Taiwan, we could blockade the Chinese import of oil. Unlike WW2, our blockade would be far out of the area controlled by the Chinese Navy.
How long could China last if we initiated a remote oil blockade in response to any hostile action?
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/asia/china-taiwan-buzzing-mystery-intl-hnk
For nearly two weeks, Chinese fighter jets stopped buzzing Taiwan. No one seems to know why.
In 2025 China built 80gw of new coal plants.
It built 60gw of actual solar capacity.
It installed 360gw of solar panels.
About 14,400 square miles
About the size of NJ, Conn, Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
John Henry
Not to worry.. the second moron AOC and her Soros selected peon take charge, Taiwan will be thrown to the wolves.
Howard said, "The primary Arabian export besides oil is Cash"
Whose faces are on the bills? Furthermore, they can keep them...they're devalued daily. If they remunerated PMs I'd be less hasty, even though it would just be moving pallets from one room to the next in NYC. Since possession is 9/10ths of the law we still have everything where I'm concerned.
Howard said...
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/asia/china-taiwan-buzzing-mystery-intl-hnk
For nearly two weeks, Chinese fighter jets stopped buzzing Taiwan. No one seems to know why.
I am assuming you know the 3 obvious most likely reasons.
People pretending that the Venezuela and Iran operations have been a straight kick in the balls for China on multiple levels are just being stupid.
Back in the 1980's when I was just beginning my career in chemistry, we were touted as the "Saudi Arabia" of coal. I worked on projects to convert coal into more useful hydrocarbons. That all went away when coal was demonized. We still have those resources. If push comes to shove we would use them.
OldManRick said...
How long could China last if we initiated a remote oil blockade in response to any hostile action?
Even harsher would be a naval food blockade.
China is out of food within weeks if they can’t import food. The inability to keep the lights on would come after the people of China tore the country apart in starvation riots.
China has no way to fight any sort of actual war.
Trump's international actions are meant to check or reverse China's Belt & Road efforts.
Cheap oil gave China the luxury of bullying everyone in the South China Sea per their ancient Nine-Dash line ambitions. Building and manning those ~illegal~ bases consumes a lot of oil.
Taiwan isn't going anywhere, so that battle could be fought another day. The coral atoll airstrips may well sink into the sea without constant $$$$$.
FFS people, everytime you read solar/wind is xx% of energy they're only talking about the maximum energy available on the sunniest/windiest day. The percentage used in the real world on a 365/7 basis in minuscule compared to other forms of power generation.
People lacking technical experience have no clue about the realistic timelines required to overcome real physics obstacles in front of infrastructure makeovers and do overs.
The MAGAs whom think US manufacturing can replace China in a timely manner are as equally ignorant.
Freed is overlooking a LOT to make such a broad statement, unsupported by facts. Their cost for fuel just went up, way up, over the "shadow-fleet" sanction discount they were enjoying on both IR and VZ oil. But the real world test of their hardware is what really sets them back.
In both VZ and IR Chinese "state of the art" air defense systems were installed and then swept our of our way instantly by our coutermeasures. They also supplied their "top of the line" copies of our F-35 fighters (which only weigh a few tons more each) and they were also dispatched within minutes, never even engaging with our or the IS Air Force pilots. Add to that the in-theatre use of our laser system for taking down incoming drones/rockets/whatever and a lot of Chinese "advances" in recent years are looking like bad investments.
Of course, Josh should note, it is better to find out now when no CCP soldiers are dying in the tests to find out how well their hardware works IRL. So not all bad news for China.
The MAGAs whom think US manufacturing can replace China in a timely manner are as equally ignorant.
enough ad whominems
Funny fact: Electricity is an energy movement/delivery method, like steam, not an energy storage or production method. Energy is stored in fossil fuels (old solar energy stored as chemical enegy), as gravity energy in water held at height, in direct solar impingement and in air movement due to thermal discontinuities produced by solar impingement. Yes, there is some gravity stored energy in geo-thermal.
So "Roughly one-third of China’s total energy consumption now comes from electricity" is really one-third of the total energy consumption is delivered by electricity transport in contrast to steam transport or production at point of use.
The capital replacement cycles of wind and solar will eventually be obvious and will have to be accounted for. There really are no free lunches.
Mike D
For solar, the actual capacity is @20% of the nominal or nameplate capacity. 20% is what I use when talking about solar capacity. Some sources think 15%is more realistic.
Wind is more variable with some locations producing 30-40% of nameplate but others prodding zero.
20% is probably reasonable when speaking of wind in general.
John Henry
RideSpaceMountain said...
..go full-bore and double down on solving the fusion problem..
why? why wait for fusion? WHY
y'all have any idea how much Thorium there is in the world?
look it up!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occurrence_of_thorium
if someone (ANY ONE) is says they are Serious about CO2 reduction..
ask them about Thorium.. When they don't answer; ignore them
Advocates estimate that five hundred metric tons of thorium could supply U.S. energy needs for one year.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the largest-known U.S. thorium deposit, the Lemhi Pass district on the Montana-Idaho border, contains thorium reserves of 64,000 metric tons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor#Liquid-fluoride_thorium_reactor
Fun fact Howard,
The us is building new manufacturing facilities at the annualized, seasonaoadjusted rate of $205bn for 2026.per census bureau. Link later if you want it.
For comparison, only $45bn in data centers. Neither figure include machinery, servers etc.
John Henry
I just can't understand why the fake news doesn't report this mfg growth.
It's a mystery
John Henry
The MAGAs whom think US manufacturing can replace China in a timely manner are as equally ignorant.
What is "timely" in your view?
In 10 years, assuming current plans come to fruition, there will be six or seven new chip fabs built by Taiwanese companies in Arizona. They will account for 30% of the industry's most sophisticated (2-nm) manufacturing capability. And that's just one state.
Chip fabs covering many acres of land and costing tens of billions of dollars can't be built in six months or a year, but over a decadal time frame it seems clear that a lot of production that would otherwise have been slated for Taiwan or mainland China is going to be coming home.
"There is no famine in the Soviet Union! Walter Duranty says so, and if you can't trust a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who can you trust?"
We've lost ~100,000 manufacturing jobs since 47 took office
Assuming current MAGA pipedreams come true, things will be great in a decade. Whomsoever can argue with that logical explanation?
@Howard:
How did we lose 100K jobs when we've only had about 25 manufacuturing jobs in the whole country for the last 10 or 20 years?
We've lost ~100,000 manufacturing jobs since 47 took office
You should have saw how many were lost when they freed the slaves in 1863.
The capital replacement cycles of wind and solar will eventually be obvious and will have to be accounted for
Tommy Norris told me windmills are junk…
"They also supplied their "top of the line" copies of our F-35 fighters (which only weigh a few tons more each) and they were also dispatched within minutes, never even engaging with our or the IS Air Force pilots."
That would be their J-20 and I'm pretty sure that didn't happen.
Howard, you seem to be confusing manufacturing jobs with manufacturing output
Since WW part 2 us manufacturing jobs have been decreasing.
Since WW part 2 manufacturing output per Capita, adjusted for inflation has tripled or quadrupled
Very few years it hasn't increased year over year
Mostly because of automation and because of more value add.
And that is a good thing, IMHO. I spend a lot ot time in manufacturing plants across the us in all industries. Most of the "manufacturers jobs" that people think of, that a hs grad can do with little or no specialized training are shitty jobs. Most of the time they don't even pay much better than Best Buy or an Amazon warehouse.
John Henry
I made a video a few years back, I call it "then and now" it compares a Seagrams bottling plant, slow and manual with lots of "manufacturing jobs" to a modern fast and automated bottling plant.
Do you think it's a bad thing the seagrams plant closed?
I think consumers, investors AND workers are better off.
https://youtu.be/D1jCu8lFEBs?si=olw4FJJnoupcKSdp
Cant find the link to my video on my phone, I will post later.
Link is to the original 1960s seagrams video. State of the art for the time
John Henry
Imagine spending 40 years tightening bottle caps by hand as in the video
Otoh, they have forearms that would make Popeye blush with envy
John Henry
Tommy norris is a wise man
Howard said...
The MAGAs whom think US manufacturing can replace China in a timely manner are as equally ignorant.
3/13/26, 11:05 AM
What essential product is China producing that the USA couldn't get domestically or from another vendor?
“Trump is not an Orange man. The O-word is a pejorative label akin to the N-word. No, not nerd. Umder Diversity bloc classification, Trump is a Person of Orange or PoO.“
In 2016 the us media did a pre-ai trick. On photos of trump they turned up the saturation to make Trump look orange. I used to do that by turning the tint dial on my parents Zenith Color TV.
I knew a Princeton EE in 2016, very capable, who told me that Trump was ineligible to be President because he was Orange.
China has no nuc ships except for 5 subs and needs oil to attack Taiwan. Airplanes need kerosene. Any war needs a reserve of fuel. Offense is different than defense.
Makers Mark whiskey was still dunking their bottle tops in wax by hand a few years back. They had rows of...high schoolers or college students...standing along a conveyor belt. The red dripping wax is major PR thing for MM, and they probably gain local good will.
“ The MAGAs whom think US manufacturing can replace China in a timely manner are as equally ignorant.”
Western companies are fleeing China. IP theft and intimidation of executives by criminal charges are rampant. China can’t rent capital on international markets.
1. Restart generic drug manufacturing in the US including PR.
2. Mine minerals including lithium and Potash brines that will overwhelm foreign production. Mine rare earths. China: I make kids scratch dirt locally and in Africa. US: I pay good wages to people who drive 400 ton per load haul trucks.
3. China: I destroy fisheries because it reduces food imports. US: sorry, my plains beat your mountains.
Yes they have Howard. A big reason is automation.
Back in the ancient times, when I was an apprentice it would take three or four die makers and their helpers to make one moderately sized stamping die. Now it takes one or two.
gilbar said, "why? why wait for fusion? WHY"
I'm not substituting one for the other. In theory I like fusion because it's clean and America has been trying to figure out what do with spent reactor fuel assemblies for decades without success. Personally I think burying them in Yucca Mountain is perfectly acceptable but lots of people don't.
I like nuclear power, especially scalable SMRs.
Can we talk about Tarriffs?
@Rustygrommet: Back in my young days I only needed a clay tablet and a sharp stick to stamp out my cuneiform. Those old records are still good too.
We've lost ~100,000 manufacturing jobs since 47 took office
Statistical noise. Of much more pleasing interest is the ~500k government jobs that are gone, or the overall numbers showing most recent job losses are among foreigners who've been booted out or left voluntarily, balanced out by increased employment for American citizens.
Assuming current MAGA pipedreams come true, things will be great in a decade. Whomsoever can argue with that logical explanation?
Why don't you do a little research before showing us all how ignorant you are, Howard?
The first Taiwan Semiconductor fab in North Phoenix, TSMC Fab 21-1, has been in production for a year. TSMC Fab 21-2 has completed buildout and is now installing equipment, and they broke ground on TSMC Fab 21-3 last year. TSMC bought 900 more acres outside Phoenix in January and plans at least three more fabs on the site.
The new Intel Fab 52 is also in full production as of late last year and their Ocotillo fab in Chandler will open this year.
Total investment by the semiconductor industry in Arizona since 2020 exceeds 50 billion dollars, and will go over 200 billion by 2030. Jobs in the industry are up by 50% since 2020.
Pipedreams, my ass. That's real money.
Back in my young days I only needed a clay tablet and a sharp stick to stamp out my cuneiform. Those old records are still good too.
Indeed they are. I wonder how many documents created in the 20th century will survive for 4000 years.
Personally I think burying them in Yucca Mountain is perfectly acceptable but lots of people don't.
Even more acceptable is encasing the waste in heavy glass and shoving it off a boat in 10,000 feet of water many miles offshore.
Do the math. If you dissolved all the nuclear waste ever produced by mankind in a cubic mile of seawater and drank a cup of it, you'd get less radiation than if you ate a banana. And there are some 300 million cubic miles of water in the world's oceans.
Nuclear waste is simply not a problem. We evolved in a constant bath of radiation and have built-in repair enzymes to handle minor radiation damage to our genes. Cosmic rays and radon gas and pitchblende ore irradiated the whole world before the first strand of DNA ever formed. Small amounts of radiation are utterly harmless.
Another not-so-disagreeable option, but the same cast that disagreeeeeeee with Yucca Mountain will not like it either. Point of fact, the especially long-lived radionuclides would be safer at the bottom of an ocean trench than in a mountain.
Rusty
I spent a week in an aircraft plant last year. 4-seaters. One of the cells I worked in made landing gear struts, complex geometry, some sort of tough stainless alloy. The kind of thing it might have taken a highly skilled t&d maker 3-4 different machines and a couple shifts to make.
Now, load it in a 5 axis cnc, load the tooling in the correct pockets of the turret, call the program from memory, an hour later unload the finished part.
Probably better quality than any human could do.
Operator runs 2 machines and hand verifies critical dimensions of finished parts.
I had a chance to chat with the operator. Hs grad, no particular skills. Started in the plant moving stuff around. Learned the machine with some ojt. Currently working his way to more complex stuff & more money.
I assume the Co would pay for him to go to trade school or college. Most companies do.
I have several clients who make medical implants (joints, bone splices etc) in PR. Here they mostly require a year or 2 of machinist trade school for a similar job, though they seem to do more.
John Henry
Take heart, space mountain. Fusion is only 10 years away, it's real close now.
I was taught this in 1968 in Navy nuclear power school. It was true then. True now and will probably be true in 2100.
Me,I'm waiting for Elon to scale up Starlink from beaming microwatts of solar power to megawatts.
The physics and engineering problems are mostly known and solvable. At the moment the main constraint is economic, getting the gear into orbit and assembled
John Henry
No, contrary to the article, China isn’t doing just fine - hence the article. Their oil and gas situation wasn’t good, and recently got worse. They don’t have enough spare oil and gas to invade Taiwan with. They have millions of cars, and little to put in them. Gas lines and shortages, worse than we saw under Jimmy Carter. Venezuela and Iran were shipping oil and Gas to China. And China was buying it from them, at a steep discount. Part of it was trading arms for oil. They also got busted for sanctions busting. Oil from countries like Iran was being transshipped between vessels in their Shadow Fleet. Those vessels are forfeit now, if caught. Their vaunted 100 day supply was before hostilities broke out.
Plus they were trading arms for greatly discounted oil. Not anymore. They aren’t getting it heavily discounted, but rather paying full price, in $American$s. The arms they were trading turn out to not be comparable to what the US and Israel have been using.
What about Russian oil? Maybe if there were enough pipelines between the two countries, but there aren’t. Russia really doesn’t want the. It very definitely doesn’t want China looking north to Siberia to solve its natural resources problems.
The problem with Yucca Mountain is it's in the he Basin and Range geologic province known for a thin crust and high heat flow. The mineral rich hydrothermal fluids are why the mining was so spectacular all over Nevada.
Peter Zeihan was on Prof G's pudcast yesterday. He was very pessimist as per usual, but confident that the US suffers the least in a world without free flowing Arabian oil. China, according to Peter, is toast.
Just a minor aside, but China uses more coal than the rest of the world combined. I can't know that for sure, but whenever I check online sources and do the math, it always comes out the same.
China burns more coal than the rest of the world combined.
The Nazi PRC is exempt from climate change modalities because they are a poor 3rd world country that makes solar panels.
In the spirit of the Althouse blog, I should also note I had to look up modalities to make sure I was using it correctly. If not, I am happy for suggestions. Also, check me on the coal usage.
After billions of dollars of taxpayers' money as subsidies to create a false demand and market, America gets about 10% of the energy consumed daily from wind and solar. Most of our energy comes from natural gas and oil. 15 million barrels of oil PER DAY to keep the trucks and cars moving. Oil is the lifeblood of EVERY modern country economy. A 20% increase in price at the pump. Oil is over $100 a barrel from about $60 in the blink of an eye. China is in a bind.
Google is now paying $300 to $500 per hour for doing work online work from home. Last paycheck of me said that $20537 from this easy and simple job. Its amazing and earns are awesome. No boss, full time freedom and earnings are in front of you. This job is just awesome. Every person can makes income online with google easily….
.
Visit This…………… https://Cash430.blogspot.Com
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.